


Subzero Preservation

by starcrossed_writer



Series: Give The Cold My Regards [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blindfolds, Fantastic Racism, Forced Nudity, Gen, Hurt Keith (Voltron), Hypothermia, Keith (Voltron)-centric, Kidnapping, Muzzles, Non-Consensual Touching, Threats of Rape/Non-Con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-21 00:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16148834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starcrossed_writer/pseuds/starcrossed_writer
Summary: Keith's been labeled as a specimen in a vast illegal ring of alien trafficking, the cold creaking his bones and soul.





	Subzero Preservation

The first thing Keith chooses to register in his foggy,muddled mind is that's it's  _far_  too cold. His eyes blink like molasses, the temperature seeping down into his bones to sap away his usually decently temperate body into numb prickles of icicles.

He feels as if he's been sleeping for years, moving with a small jerk to make some form of alarm to alert his bones that they're being used at that current moment.They seem to creak and pop when he does so, making him wince—his eyelids seemingly droop from exhaustion (yet he can't recall any form of reason about why, next to the ache all over his body that's dull and throbbing). He lays his head gently against the wall, the nipping of the chill supplying it with nothing but sharp taps.

Keith watches each of his small almost rhythmic breaths he's producing. If he breathes out, albeit shakily, he can easily watch as it shows itself out in a heavy mist—being this low in coldness than any normal weather he's ever felt normally back on Earth was definitely not good for his body temperature. His nails were turning blue with the nipping warning of frostbite. This means it's too cold for his body to healthily retain warmth, Keith's brain supplies, as he starts to heavily shiver more often not that far soon after his vision becomes a tad clearer.

It's almost as if his body is trying to aid in providing the best sense for the current moment, and attempting to put the rest on emergency reserve. He's heard of that happening in survival situations, but to experience it is quite bizarre from a first-person perspective.

Keith's head feels absolutely scrambled in confusion, trying to remember exactly how he landed himself in this clustering mess of a situation in the first place to begin with.He scans his eyes over the room (barren except for a metal like platform jutting out from the wall as a pitiful excuse for a bed, with a tiny pillow prepped on top of it and nothing else) he was encased in, trying to find out any useful information—until he registers something.

With chattering teethhe tears his eyes away from his surrounding bland area, with the notion that whoever had taken him here had completely disarmed and unclothed him—he recoiled in absolute disgust at the thoughtof someone touching him while being unconscious and stripping him down to nothing without his permission; he felt utterly violated.

He didn't have  _anything_.Even his utility belt was gone, leaving him bare and vulnerable without any weapons at his disposal.If he had his blade with him he would feel more secure in his endeavors and attempts to escape _._ Keith could easily try to hack away at his confines if he did have it.

Or, at the very least, have the capability to counter anybody who comes near him—even though his entire sequence of trying to brawl would be futile. Keith could hardly move as is; a weapon won't do him any good with him being chilled with frostbite.

He felt somewhat like a specimen being preserved; they used cold conditions usually to keep such quality of food or bodies from decomposition—but he was alive, very much so, in fact, but he didn't know for how long at this rate.

Keith puts all his current mental strength capacity into trying to recall what actually happened to end him up in what seems to him like a better-conditioned pet carrier (he stares at the clear glass in front of him, but does not dare attempt to get up due to still presumably weakened bones). He thinks, long and hard.

* * *

_They had went to another swap-moon, one seemingly extremely popular among the locals within that certain sector of the galaxy. The team didn't want to go to the one they had went to before, seeing as they were apparently space pirates and couldn't go back._

_ Keith was taking some time off from the mission excursions with the Blades that he did in his free-time when not piloting Black and forming Voltron, as much as it itches him to do something rather than have a futile attempt to quote-on-quote "relax" (only to have himself end up staring at the directory of the space mall there in utter boredom). _

_ There seemed to contain all different assortments of stores, some for Galra or for others. The team had kind of technically split up and abandoned him as soon as they have arrived here, all of them with glee bouncing in their seats during the trip here—although this time, what was different was that Allura had joined them. Keith smiled to himself as he hoped she had found herself something sparkly, like Allura wanted to have to herself last time. Coran had decided to allow it, and was keeping guard over the castle while they visited. _

_He's sure they didn't mean to leave him to his lonesome, really. They're just a bunch of excited teenagers like he is (well, minus the excited part at this current moment). The team knew Keith tended to want to go off and do his own thing, after all. So, he's doing what he does best at these types of places and spending the time standing with his eyes scanning over area with daft interest on the helpful board of locations listed._

_ Last time he was at one of these, he had asked what he had guessed to be a knife expert about his Marmora blade. How the shopkeeper had answered with the chemical compound within it, Luxite, which came from a planet that hadn't existed in decaphoebs. It all seemed quite irrelevant to him now, but he guessed the Blades are able to awaken their weapons by their reactant to the stimuli of it. It was quite interesting to think over, how it could respond on that level of formation to percentage of Galra heritage alone. _

_ As he thought more about his passed-down weapon, he grew a decreasing want to be here now and an increasing urge to train (with the Blades or Team Voltron, either one was fine) the more restless he grew. _

_Keith was growing rather fed up, if he was being completely honest. Moving his focus over from the directory to look at the posters plastered around it, he became much more intrigued (and slightly concerned) as he stares at a certain singular one. His visual translator headset placed on his right ear to have a screen on the eye on that side was for this very purpose, since logically not every single species spoke and wrote one same language or dialect. Staring at an orange one, he stayed still to allow it to read and decipher the words, pronouncing it back to him so he could understand it._

_ It seemed to be a service to handle a collection of immoral breeding. He guesses that means like pets or something like the notion, maybe purebred alien creatures allowed only...perhaps not permitted to come in here unless they're for servicing their owners. Is that perhaps where the owners drop them off to do their shopping? Simply the problem most likely was that the translation didn't really come through clearly enough for him to figure it out. _

_ On the poster, it said that they have a location here in the mall at the far end of the building. It was positioned right next to what seemed to be one of those Earth shops Lance and Pidge had rambled to all of them about last mall visit. _

_ "Excuse me, paladin." He'd heard a voice say, making him turn around towards it. Before he could reach his back to grasp at his blade, a sweet-smelling rag was confined over his nose and mouth area expertly, making him choke. All he could register was that it was coated with a substance that seemed to drug him, as if a tranquilizer dart had shot him. _

_ He'd made what futile struggle he could as eventually his moves turned to nothing, the dose not strong enough to keep him asleep just yet in slumber but enough to silence his muscle coordination. _

_"This mutt will fetch a fair price, being half-breed Galra_ and _a paladin." A voice chuckled, sounding scathing like boiling hot water as footsteps paced around his site. From the vibrations he could feel around him, they were close. He kept his eyes lidded, too collapsed with dispersed power and no flight to successfully fight back as he drifted off; the voice said something about uttermost purity and no blockage (whatever that had meant), before he drifted off._

_The last sound he heard was fabric, and finally he felt dramatic pressure all around him_ _. Tugging and tugging over and off._

_Then, everything faded to black._

* * *

Keith came back to his senses, another lonesome chill heading itself in a negative current from his racking skull down to the bones of his feet _._

He yelped as the front wall with the locked door in front of him registered to become translucent suddenly, the others he never noticed were next to him slowly following as well. The only part of the room not completely see through was that bed somehow.

Keith chose not to question it, curling up more and crossing his arms across his chest defensively.

Lights suddenly burst to life in a powerful way, absolutely hurting Keith's sensitive eyes due to being so adjusted to the accompanying dark he was dwelling in since his wake. He brought his hand up to shield himself, hissing slightly as he recoiled back so his retinas wouldn't get destroyed _._  His eyelashes felt as if they had icicles frosted to the follicles.

Blinking slowly, he carefully stood up, stumbling a bit on shaky and misused legs. Trying not to crumple from the numb little pinprick feeling accompanying them, he quickly moved to make it more bearable—the increased movement would wake his muscles up and make it less nullified.

From what little noise he could hear, there was breathing coming from all around him. Keith hastily backed up a bit. He scanned his eyes everywhere and jumped as more lights came on outside his unit-like containment. He assumed that meant someone was in the room.

All the lights had that florescent hum reminiscent of the sounds lightbulbs made on Earth, which did slightly intrigue Keith. It also provided somewhat of a grateful distraction, focusing on the constant streaming instead of what his fate held.

The containment cubicles next to him were sharply cut off by some distance, as he noted that since he was a new one here he must be separated first to show it.

Keith decides after a while to finally turn and look at the other units like his, out of curiosity, worrying his bottom lip as he goes through another round of shaking.

Drawing his sights to them, they all contained foreign aliens—some had abnormalities, and others appeared to be fine in physical attributions. It seemed, though, as if the mental capabilities were no longer there, since unlike Keith himself now, no one was moving.

Keith's eyes widened, instantly getting a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. The one where it drowns and suffocates your thinking, almost in a vice grip as you struggle and unravel yourself without even knowing.

The red paladin of Voltron is hotheaded and full of scathing lava-like energy in his veins, that much is truthful as he brings down the first sharp fist against the strong build of the little room.

The aliens all stared blankly at him as he began knocking on the glass hard, growling under his breath in frustration. He guessed, as he started slamming his body into the wall, that he was part of whoever had kidnapped him's weird collection. All the aliens' inhibitions seemed to have been stripped away, leaving them hollow and devoid.

The others around him in the lit rooms seemed to gaze at him sadly, almost knowingly, like he was another lost victim.

Some, he distantly noted, contained water and looked like fish bowls. Others looked more suited for ground, filled up with dirt. Those like his were normal and just had air.

All the biospheres looked artificially made, sealed in different ways and given different defining architectural characteristics.

The fish bowls were round and enclosed at the top, like a lid that could be popped off.

The terrarium ones were shaped like a bottle, and had a little door in the corner above the piles of soil or sand.

Keith's had a entrance where it was like a normal room, at the front. It was in the form of almost rectangular, rounding out at the edges to be more similar to an oval.

The aliens if he looked closer were either unresponsive or deceased, floating eerily in the water ones and not moving. The dirt gave no drastic movement. The bodies were collapsed on the floor, not twitching once to prove the state.

Keith would not let himself be victimized; he had what they did not—hope, determination, and enough willing strength to get out of here while he still could _._

He had what everyone here once did.

"Hey!" He banged harder, his fists curled up as he snarled slightly, glowering at the darkened ground outside of his imprisonment. Keith let out a sharp cry as he suddenly felt a sharp stinging pain ripple throughout his body, like a volt shock to his insides.

It made him fall onto the ground, crumpling into a ball. His nose began to bleed, dripping to the pristine reflective white floor steadily. Keith's skull felt like it was fried, the electricity impacting heavily and thus causing a reaction of his nose. His ears popped, a crude noise similar to snapping or dislocating a bone quickly—just a second and its over.

"H-Humans can't survive in this cold..." He breathed as an afterthought, neck sore. His voice was barely there, unaware of the collar strapped to his neck causing such pure distaste to his vocal chords as his kidnapper looked down at him. Keith must have been too lethargic to recall there being anything on his neck to begin with, along with someone standing near him much less entering the enclosure.

He hears nothing but garble, thinking his ears to most likely be clogged. Everything is warped and muffled, as if his ears have been forcibly stuffed with cotton.

The shadowed figure seemed to stare straight at him studiously, before smirking dubiously as he steps within Keith's confines. Keith hears nothing but the pumping of his blood in his eardrums, and the solemn beating of his heart punching holes strongly against the paper-veiled artistry of his chest.

Sensing movement, Keith growled at the figure, moving to lunge at them. The mysterious unknown kidnapper evaded with practiced ease, and grabbed him by the back of his neck with incredible reflexes. That spot seemed to have an adverse affect, making Keith go limp.

They pulled out what appeared to be a muzzle from their equipped belt, tsking in utter disappointment as they threw Keith away to hit the wall. The muzzle swung in their hands, almost tauntingly.

"You're probably wondering where you are, hm?" It sounded like a taunt, but it was garbled and hissed—barely able for Keith to decipher with his brain being clogged. "You're quite far away from home, mutt." A simple pause of breath, as Keith tried standing up again.

_Home, the castle-ship. The others. Home._

"Here, breeds like you are put on display for the fine entertainment of guests. My prideful collection has been tamed and domesticated, just as you will be soon."

Keith kept on fading in and out, but he still kicked and struggled until he felt somewhat of a sharp sting in his hip from a needle. It made him become quite down-tempo, increasingly more sluggish than even before he had awoken—he didn't feel anything initially as the muzzle was sharply clicked into place. The sensation was piercingly brutal once it came back, making him cry out because not even whatever they gave him could stop the level of pain.

The muzzle dug into his skin, and Keith howled as he tried to claw it off rapidly, his nails painfully screeching over the metal as he gasped. He glared at the fuzzy black shadow he couldn't make out as a being, but they had a strange glowing yellow skin allowing for translucency.

"Oh my, how noisy you are. My patrons will enjoy the showing with you much more docile." They whistled to allow another of their handlers in to restrain his arms behind his back as they came in on cue.

It was tightly wound around his eyes from what he could feel from the main senses, followed by something metal creaking into place beside his ears to settle behind the lobe of it. The small translator piece had gone unnoticed thankfully, still there and not bothered.

Of course, at this point he'd rather not understand their speech than to know what they're saying about him as he helplessly listens against his will.

Keith kicked and screamed, growling with the biting rage of fight still coursing through his veins.

His jaw was pried open, a bar forced to rip into the sides of his mouth via a small contraption built in to the muzzle—he couldn't possibly be able to close his mouth all that well.

The abductor looked at Keith with distaste, but it wasn't like Keith could see him with his eyes being covered by heavy metal goggles. They cut into his face with the suction like restrictions making the metal dig into the recess of his pale flesh.

Keith cried out, giving in to the realism of the situation, kicking (which appeared more like what a puppy would do in its sleep when it's chasing something, for a better analogy).

"Not very tall for a Galra, but I've never had the rare chance to have a Terran species mixed with one before now. The paladins are most rare to collect for their unknown race, yet you are a fine specimen of Galra mixed genetic coding." He rattled off, all while Keith could do nothing but make noises, ones that couldn't help but sound pure Galra.

Keith was growling deep in his throat, the sound reverberating and not beginning to cease. He may not be able to talk, but he could still make noises through the muzzle that was barely allowing him to breathe.

It was digging into his skin around his lips, pushing them down. The area around the muzzle already was marred from the pressure, white and alert of it.

Keith blearily focused on inhaling air through his nose instead.

"Presumed male from outward appearance and personality display. Body is lithe, obvious scar from possibly a sword on the right shoulder..." A voice Keith could identify as clinical and somewhat bored sounded from another place near him.

"Considered a prime candidate for pleasure purposes," there was a beat of nothing, then the voice came back lilting slightly in question, "would you give it up for sexual ventures in the trade?"

Keith isn't sure if there was any verbal confirmation, so he assumed there was a nod.

 _It_. He was an  _it_  to them. An item. Worthless and nothing but extra cash for the taking.

He felt hands calculating him instead of eyes without any warning throughout, slimy ones running down his thigh, his sides, and taking ahold of his hair to analyze. Keith swayed on an uneven balance, not keen being this vulnerable to someone and unable to do anything.

Energy sapped, he started shaking miserably—trying to back away would prove fruitless.

Keith mentally berated himself; here he was with a prime chance to try and fight back and escape, but all he could do was pitifully shiver as he was touched against his will.

In honesty, Keith knew he'd get only a kick in (even less than that) but the general awareness that he isn't fighting back is at the front of his priorities. It's like he's accepting this, the anxiety overpowering the logic to cause flight in the form of mental escapism.

His mind was swimming with precarious questions, such as if they decided to probe him somewhere he definitely didn't want to be. Keith would be powerless, it's all out in the open; he can't protect himself.

He must have zoned out for the rest of the examination, as Keith heard a sudden scoff, before what he presumed to be a door abruptly open and close; he was alone again.

Collapsing on the ground, Keith scoots to the farthest corner that he can be in. He hugs himself tight and banishes the possibility that he'd be touched anywhere else.

* * *

They come back later, for some extra division of appraisal.

Keith does get touched more, his mind blanking it all out from his memory as they begin to concentrate more below his hips.

They luckily draw out time, thus being unable to check internally that he's a male.

There's a scalding promise in the tug to the skin next to his bony hip that they'll be back soon to carry out it; this was simply an overview, and much worse will be done to him in his new life.

Keith doesn't want to possibly gather what is meant by that, face blurring with silent tears he pushes back to depend on the sanity of how much longer he can take this.

He's stopped trying to keep track of how long he has been here for to preserve remaining will.

Time fizzes between rests and lucidness.

* * *

Keith really needs to use the restroom.

There's no toilet in his confinement, since once he had regained as much real mobility that he could he had checked everywhere within.

It's futile to assume how much time has passed, nor if anyone on the team has noticed that Keith had actually disappeared. He really hoped they did, crossing his legs impatiently.

The air was freezing his pale skin, the color turning from a normal acceptable to one that was not in the form of blue-purple in spots. His lips were chapped and deprived of oxygen, dried blood coating around his mouth.

He'd been breathing through his nose, trying not to cry for lack of gaining breaths. The last thing he wanted to do was suffocate on his own labored inhales and tears.

Keith felt a mess (probably looked it, too), and he just wanted to leave and be with the others. He couldn't just wait and stand around to be saved; he craved to do something.

Oddly, the only thing his body was crying out for was a warm hug; just to be wrapped up in someone's familiar and safe arms. Feeling the touch to his skin, with the full intentions to comfort and not analyze.

Keith whimpered, in the throes of accepting his fate as he slowly rose up, using the wall to help himself up. In the distance he heard what he could guess to be an explosion, turning towards the sound and scratching his fingers down the glass wall desperately.

The collar on his neck gave a strong shock, and he leaned on the wall in utter pain. It was like conditioning, the walls not able to be messed with. They can be leaned against, but not banged nor scratched on in any way.

Keith gave up on any hope of dignity at the way the electricity hit its course through his entire body, ghosting his fingers to the corner near the bed as he wet himself. He cried, crossing his legs as he spasmed, unable to hold it any longer; Keith could feel the gross sensation of the urine running down his leg.

The area from the examination when they were about to stick their tools up near there felt abused already. Keith could still feel the touch, the tracing, the pulling apart, the resonance of his tinny worn screaming fit. The subsequent needy noises as he wiggled out of their grasp like a floundering fish for their amusement.

Any register of worse happening had been blurred from his memory, locked in a vault he never wanted to revisit of touching for scientific greed.

Keith had tried to hold it. Though it was a natural human response, now everything is sticky and disgusting. He sobs, clawing again at the muzzle hard enough for his fingers to begin bleeding from the force.

Keith feels ashamed, all his bite now replaced with pitiful bark.

Deep inside himself he thinks he might be going insane, but with losing any presence of control over bodily functions, the cold creeps into his being like a grasp he can't escape from.

_ He wants to be with the others. He wants to be safe. At this rate, only he can make himself be safe. _

Keith whines, too tired but not enough to wish the fight to leave out of him. He cranes his head towards where he hears a shout, gargling out his teammates names in his muddled head.

_It's too cold, can't breathe. Too cold. Can't breathe. Someone help. Help._

He passes out soon after, and somebody comes to clean up the unit but not Keith. They simply throw him onto the sad excuse of a bed, sticking a tag by needling a bullet-sized hole in his ankle to get the metal wire through.

The blood stains his ankle fiercely, coating it. Although Keith is not awake for it, he's about to be transferred away from the space mall swap moon to get sold off as a sex slave, a prisoner; whatever the buyer desired him to be.

Keith has a dreamless sleep, and the next time he tries to stir into a state of awakening he can't feel anything but numbness along with the crusty urine residue between his legs.

It's varga nine from his approximations earlier of watching the clock on the wall in whatever storage room they're keeping Keith in. He had restarted his counting, so it must have been longer than that.

The process is simply something to keep the fear from nesting in his heart.

* * *

Keith's used to being alone. Not like this, though, this utter disparity knowing that he isn't anymore, but he might as well be with how empty it is.

Looking down, he notes the feeling of something (the now bloody tag, stating the price and new occupation) attached to his person. It reads a large amount of GAC, presumably. He blinks slowly, since even behind the goggles flakes are forcing his eyes shut on his eyelashes. Every blink brings pain, taping his eyes closed.

Keith knows now there's no way he can stand, at least without excruciating pain stemming from his unattended ankle injury.

He hears clinking metal, and what sounds like the barrel of a plasma gun shooting that he's familiarized so much with the Bayards. Keith's ears ring, and he whimpers, curling up in the bed and slowly raising his hands to cover his ears from the noise.

It must be a set up, certainly. Keith's breath creates a minuscule fog through the muzzle, and he shifts.

There's no way they'd come for him, he's going to die here. Surrounded by aliens subjected to brain-dead torture, yet they won't die as quickly as he is now. Human skin lasts not as long for a temperature absorbent, and he'll wither away into nothing but a freezing corpse.

Keith hugs himself, rocking back and forth with his back to the bad wall that shocks him. He wants to touch it harshly, wants to bang on it and scream, but he'll get electrocuted again.

Keith wants to take all his pain and sharpening claustrophobia out on it, enjoying watching it shatter under the weight. He wants to escape, find the others. Free these poor aliens, because he can't just get out and leave them to suffer in his stead.

It's not what a paladin would do. It's not what  _he_  would do.

Keith wants to be safe and hidden away in warm clothes, no longer at the whim of hands trailing down his exposed body. He wants his blade, so he can find comfort in the fact that it's there in his hands.

Comfort that he's armed and can tear someone to pieces for doing this to him, as well.

His voice had long since left, and he makes feeble little screeches occasionally. Keith scratches at the bed, panting and gasping as he chokes on the blood he swallows. He hacks, tears gathering in his eyes and burning harsh through the metal goggles.

Suddenly, it's like he's shifted, the room seeming to spin from the force. His brain rattles as vibrations seem to riddle themselves seamlessly up his spinal cord to the cranium impact of downward motion.

What Keith doesn't know is that his unit is being moved onto the ship, and was given top priority due to both who and  _what_ he is. Keith is the first shipment.

This ship will take him to one of many intergalactic sex slave rings - or, if anyone has any sway over the dictation, to a new owner or display area to await loading once again.

He hears what he thinks is an engine turn on, shaking his confinement. Keith passes out from the vibrations after a while, not knowing how long he remains out for that time.

His movement is sluggish, everything having went numb in his body a long while ago, and he begins to drift off again to another plane of unconsciousness before he hears a door opening.

It creaks, and sounds close by, if not right across or even a few paces from him. His heart skips a beat, hope and deceit filling his chest with beliefs contradicting each other.

Faintly, there's more assumed-to-be Bayard noises of plasma blasters. He feels the cold harsh air slip out, whining deep in his throat as he starts shivering severely.

Keith assumes it's paranoia from being in here so long, brushing it off with a feverish penchant of hopelessness.

The room temperature reaches his naked skin, abrupt and wrenching, and it's akin to coming out of a freezer at below zero right into a comfy household outside of it. Except that it has the adverse affect, causing Keith to have his skin seem to wake up, feeling the sharpness of every pain he was afflicted.

His ankle sears, his hip aching. Keith's face feels wet, just as his body feels crusty and disgusting. It's parallel to if the temperature atones towards his awareness, but doesn't allow him to get better, just more attentive to the pain.

He hears a sharp intake of breath, and some fort of explicit whispered exclamation. A shout, one that makes Keith flinch in response from the sensitivity of his other senses.

Keith almost instantly backs up farther against the wall from his stationed area of the bed as much as he can, cowering and appearing as if he isn't there, sniffling. He feels the presence grow ominously closer.

He's trying to be invisible, because if he succeeds maybe they won't touch him again, they won't examine and poke at him like a science experiment like he fears might happen in a nightmare sequence.

There's so many things they'd not checked up on yet, it was rational there was only a matter of time they'd investigate somehow more personal matters (his breath picks up through the muzzle, causing it to catch from hyperventilating, at the thought of it occurring) than they have already.

If he had the right brain processes now, he'd not shy away; he'd fight, but he was defenseless and mute. They'd rendered him uselessly bone-ragged.

Keith could have sworn he'd cried out as he felt warm hands obstruct themselves to cup the cheeks of his face, weakly struggling away.

It wasn't good to be grabbed when he was docile, so he must have done something wrong, the touch scalding his freezing frame as the sheer numbness melts to unbearable pain.

_ They were back, they're going to hurt him somehow. He didn't want to be hurt. He didn't... _

He weakly struggles, sobbing again. His shivers won't quit.

"Keith, buddy, it's okay."

A new voice comes through. It's new, and soft, non-threatening in the way it delivers the words.

It settles the alarm in the remains of his responses for fight-or-flight, as he's hushed of his cries before being pulled into a warm broad chest.

There's a solid presence holding his arms, and he impulsively snuggles into it greedily. Tucks himself against it, savoring it as he grows more tired and weak.

His entire bare body warms, and he craves more as he whimpers and shifts barely more towards whoever had made the safe voice, how it wrapped around his entire being.

Keith quelled, making a tiny croon. Faintly he feels another thing wrap around him, big and protective. Like the Sun's harsh rays in the desert on a nice temperate day.

He all but welcomes it, like a dehydrated man to water.

He curls up, letting the heat engulf him with devout invitation, making small noises of still discomfort when he's still not appeased with the attempts at thawing out.

Keith faintly feels the tickling of his own inky hair across his forehead, shielding his face until it's moved by a calloused hand, making him protest with a weak hiss that turns into a mewl.

"You're okay now, Keith." The voice filters back into his mind. "We're right here. Everything's fine, kiddo. I've got you." The voice is followed thereafter with a small shush, gentle and unforced—it makes him involuntarily pause then almost purr in relief through his bone-dry larynx.

It's like a bubbly mantra, and he feels the warm inviting flow of another connection (who'd been growling with worry, before being disconnected from his thoughts by distance and neural communications) purring as a familiar presence within his mind.

Red.

Keith clings to the inviting voice along with the presence of a gentle fire rumbling his core, and right then...he knows—he's not alone anymore. Keith relaxes, passing out and acknowledging this time around that he's safe; he's not dying.

_He's home._


End file.
